VIDEO: Harkin takes issue with Grassley's comments on health care bill

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said unfounded fears should be countered by elected officials who know what is and is not included in health care legislation pending in Congress.

Harkin took issue with Sen. Chuck Grassley's comments at a town hall meeting that people have “every right to fear” a provision in a House bill that provides for end-of-life counseling.

“We should not have a government program that determines you're gonna pull the plug on grandma,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a town hall meeting in Winterset earlier this week.

After reading a newspaper account of the event, Harkin said it is “not good to feed unfounded fears of people by talking about a government program that pulls the plug on grandma.”

“I would hope that Sen. Grassley would say unequivocally there's nothing in there, nothing in this bill, and no one's contemplating anything that would interfere with the family's decision-making on what they're going to do at end of life,” Harkin said in an interview.

Harkin, making an appearance in Des Moines Thursday at the Iowa State Fair, said he hasn't spoken with Grassley about his comments.

Grassley stood by his statement when asked about it Wednesday by reporters.

“I wanted to make sure that people knew that I was not for rationing and having a government bureaucrat decide when Grandma's going to die,” Grassley said.

Grassley released a statement Thursday saying the House bill was poorly cobbled together and would have a number of unintended consequences.

“On the end-of-life issue, there's a big difference between a simple educational campaign, as some advocates want, and the way the House committee-passed bill pays physicians to advise patients about end-of-life care and rates physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care, while at the same time creating a government-run program that is likely to lead to the rationing of care for everyone,” the statement said.

Grassley said the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is ranking member, is working through the complexities of health care issues to avoid unintended consequences.

“We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly,” Grassley said. “Maybe others can defend a bill like the (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can't.”